Jane Lu has revealed she turned down multiple reality TV opportunities before becoming a panellist on the newly revamped Shark Tank Australia.
The self-proclaimed “Lazy CEO” is the founder of popular online retailer Showpo, which makes up to $100 million in sales annually.
So, it’s no wonder producers have been trying to nab someone as successful as Jane to make a splash on TV.
Chatting to Yahoo! Lifestyle, the 37-year-old admitted she’s “always said no” when approached to appear on reality shows.
“I was never going to be on some of these other contestant shows and that kind of stuff,” she confessed. “And also with reality TV, you don’t know how it’s gonna come across.”
Yep, we think the MAFS stars have some things to say about that…
Jane told the publication that one of the series she was offered a spot on was Australian Survivor: Champions V Contenders in 2018.
“I was like, ‘Um no’,” she recalled. “And then I told my husband and he was like, ‘You can’t even survive in the city, how are you gonna survive in the wild?’.
“They asked a few times, but then one year my marketing team were like, ‘You have to do it’. So they actually got the producers to come into the office and they ambushed me to try and get me to do it.”
However, Jane was pregnant at the time.
“I wasn’t ready to tell people yet, so I was like, ‘You can talk all you want but this isn’t gonna happen’.”
Shark Tank Australia‘s Jane Lu was also offered a position on Celebrity Apprentice
Jane also dished that she turned down Celebrity Apprentice Australia when she was asked to be a contestant rather than an advisor.
“I was like, I’m not going to be competing,” she says. “You have so much more to lose.
“I feel like it’s probably more interesting for the producers if you lose. Potentially, I don’t know.”
As for how Shark Tank came to fruition, Jane admitted she thought the initial email she received was a scam.
“I always said, if it was Shark Tank I’d do it, thinking it was not on air at the time and it hasn’t been for a while so there’s no chance,” she explained.
“And so when I got an email from the producer Gemma, I actually thought it was a prank. Sorry Gemma to out you, but the subject was ‘Shark Tanks’. So she just made a typo, but it was at a time when I was getting a lot of those phishing emails. I was like, someone’s trying to scam me for ‘Shark Tanks’.”
She continued: “I was like, there’s no way. There’s no way they’re trying to get me for Shark Tank.
“So it was a bit of a pinch-me moment when we actually started rolling.”
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